ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A new international partnership positions two universities and a leading company to put low-cost solar cell technology on a fast track to market.

The University of Michigan is joining with Dankook University in South Korea and Korean government Ministry of Knowledge and Economy in a four-year research project to ramp up efficiency for organic photovoltaic technology (OPV) while driving down costs, said Stephen Forrest, U-M vice president for research and a lead scientist in the project.

OPV technology can be applied to virtually any surface using a room-temperature technique akin to spray painting and hold the promise of dramatically reduced production costs.

The highly flexible and ultra-thin OPVs will enable large-scale solar energy generation directly integrated into roofs, walls, building materials and even transparent windows in a variety of colors. Other innovative OPV products include sunshades and umbrellas covered with thin, flexible organic solar cells. OPVs also can be applied directly to laptops and communications devices.

The U-M team will continue to work closely with its commercial partner, Global Photonic Energy Corporation (GPEC) of Medford Lakes, NJ, to ensure rapid scaling and prototyping of promising technologies developed during the program’s course.

“Organic solar cell efficiencies are poised at the edge of a breakthrough. Due to our recent progress (in small molecule photovoltaics), we are confident that organic solar cell power conversion efficiencies of approximately 10 percent — and possibly as high as 20 percent — are within reach during the next few years. We will be building upon approaches that were developed in our labs at the University of Michigan to enable the necessary breakthroughs,” Forrest said.

The Korean collaboration will bring strong partnerships with key electronics company, positioning technology breakthroughs with the markets. Dankook University in addition to vibrant academic activities.

Dankook University, located near Seoul, hosts a student body of about 20,000 and employs about 800 faculty. This effort is supported by the local state government and large commercial interests.

“The work will engage researchers at Dankook University with students and faculty from Dankook University collaborating on site at the University of Michigan,” Forrest said. “In addition, University of Michigan students and faculty will also travel to Korea for similar collaborative exchanges.”

Forrest, who is vice president for research at U-M, is a fellow of the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute, which develops, coordinates and promotes multidisciplinary energy research and education at U-M. Forrest also is the principal research scientist at GPEC.

Ewing, New Jersey — Global Photonic Energy Corporation (GPEC) announced that its research partners at the University of Southern California (USC), Princeton University and the University of Michigan have demonstrated organic solar cells that are semitransparent to visible light while delivering approximately half the power output of a non-transparent cell.

Semitransparent organic solar cells could be used to transform regular window glazing into a window that generates electrical power while retaining its basic functionality.

GPEC, a developer of Organic Photovoltaic (OPV) technology for ultra-low cost, high power solar cells, says this latest achievement is part of its overall R&D efforts to increase the operating performance of its OPV technology and develop insight into application areas. The company's partner researchers detailed their work in the June 5, 2006 issue of Applied Physics Letters.

Traditionally, PV or "solar" cells have been constructed of an inorganic semiconductor like silicon. Efficient silicon-based devices, especially of large surface area, are difficult and expensive to produce. Silicon cells are fragile, heavy and opaque — limiting applications and potential uses. Cost is a critical factor in the solar cell industry as solar-generated power is still four to six times more expensive to consumers than coal-generated power, states the release.

Recent efforts have focused on the use of "organic" semiconductor materials. Organic semiconductors contain the ubiquitous element Carbon and have the potential to achieve ultra-low-cost production costs and high power output in solar cells. Organic solar cells are ultra-thin, flexible and can be applied to large areas including curved or spherical surfaces. Because the organic layers are so thin, semitransparent solar cells can be fabricated creating power-generating windows that retain a significant portion of their basic transparency.

GPEC sponsored researchers at USC, Princeton and Michigan, led by Professor Stephen R. Forrest at Michigan and Professor Mark E. Thompson at USC, have focused on organic "small-molecule" devices that are assembled literally a molecule at a time in highly efficient nanostructures.

Solar cells manufacturers typically use various techniques for trapping incoming light inside the device so that power output can be improved. The typical silicon solar cell is more than 200 microns thick and opaque to visible light. Reflective back contacts are used in thinner thin-film solar cells to increase the absorption of incoming light in the device. Semitransparent cells, because they let some light pass through them, have reduced power output.

In this recent work, GPEC partner researchers at USC, Princeton and Michigan developed semitransparent organic solar cells that leverage the superior absorption capabilities of organic semiconductor materials and nanometer-scale films to achieve high levels of visible light transparency while at the same time minimizing power loss.

"This demonstrates one of the exciting capabilities of organic solar cells," said Aaron L. Wadell, Chief Operating Officer of Global Photonic Energy Corporation. "Because of their strong absorption characteristics and very thin layers, we can build windows that generate electricity while retaining their basic functionality — that is, they are still windows."